ATL05CA102 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Tunica Municipal Airport (UTA) to Iuka Airport (15M)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05CA102
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N5TJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tunica Municipal Airport (UTA), Tunica, MSTo Iuka Airport (15M), Iuka, MS
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Failure, total
- Pilot in command › Distance/speed, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, during cruise flight the engine suddenly began running rough. He said he adjusted the mixture, turned on the fuel pump, applied carburetor heat and switched fuel tanks with no improvement. He said he spotted the runway on his right, and said that his altitude was about 2,000 feet. The pilot attempted to land on the runway but was too fast and too high and overshot the runway and collided with trees off the end of runway 18. Examination of the engine found the number two (2) cylinder exhaust valve broken at the valve head. A review of maintenance records revealed that the engine was overhauled on July 8, 1998, at a Tach Time of 2,433.0 hours. The engine's most recent annual inspection was February 10, 2005, at an engine total time of 3,156.4 hours or 723.4 hours since major overhaul. The pilot reported that his total time in all aircraft was 63.6hours , and in this make and model of airplane 17.3 hours with 9.2 hours as pilot in command.
Probable cause
Loss of engine power due to the total failure of the exhaust valve on the number 2 cylinder, and the pilot's misjudgment of speed/distance/altitude which resulted in a overshoot of the runway and subsequent in-flight collision with trees. A factor was the pilot's lack of experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05CA102
- Event ID
- 20050712X00989
- Case number
- ATL05CA102
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 029cf8d638432d2a409824e1b03e0b31adbdc2a41837bce2a5bd0c5ac7c8a431; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:59:20.732Z.